More inspiration

I love looking at beautiful rugs and designs.  Here are some photos of wonderful rugs I found on flicker:

Dying with Carla

Our Chapter paid to have a color expert come teach us about color and dying. I know that color is my weak spot so I was so excited for this class. We discussed color, primary, secondary, aggressive, receding colors. She explained in detail the differences between hue, tint, tone, intensity and chroma and value.  We learned about color and how a color wheel works for over an hour. Haley was "board out of her mind" so I drove her home quickly and then ran back to class.

The second half of the meeting she taught us how to dye using different techniques. She showed how to confetti dye, dip dye, dull shades and how to ultimately get the color you want. I was completely fascinated. 

After taking this class I realized how color deficient I am. I will go about designing my rugs and colors in a completely different way from now on. 

She brought samples of rugs she has made. I LOVED that she finishes her rugs like a binding on a quilt with wool- I know how to do that!

You really had to see these rugs up close to appreciate what a master of color she is. 

Oh, I have so much to learn and so far to go, but I am loving the process!

Making progress...

I'm kinda thinking that I am going to pull out all the green leave, re-dye the strips darker and re-hook it. When I mentioned this to on of the ladies she said "Don't you dare... this is your 1st rug, you leave it alone" while finger wagging and using her serious face. I understand what she is saying, but I may do it anyway.

Orange Coast Classics

Today was the big day. Haley and I drove out to Anaheim to go to the Orange Coast Classics meeting for rug hookers. It was so fun to see all the girls from our chapter out there.

Haley and I spend a good deal of time walking around the room looking at other peoples projects and learning new concepts and tricks for rug hooking. Haley fell in love with a bird that a lady was hooking and she used wool roving for the belly of the bird. That's Haley's next project. We even bought a little bag of roving for when she makes it.

I learned all about prody. It sound really easy and looks cool, but for now I am sticking to traditional hooking.

I met Jane Olsen, the author of The Rug Hookers Bible. She is 87 and runs her business with more energy then anyone. She told me that she stays healthy and young because she is a hooker. She said she loves hooking and when you love what you do you don't stop. She also told me that she was one of the original 100 members of Atha, and that she is the only one still alive. So basically she has been hooking longer then anyone alive in the US. I guess you could also say she is the oldest hooker alive.

Jane told Haley that she started hooking when she was 10. Haley told Jane that she likes hooking, but can't stand hooking the backgrounds. Jane said that as a child she used to have to hook her Mom's backgrounds for her and that she hated backgrounds then and still does. After hearing Jane say that I noticed that all the patterns she hooks have very little background.

Haley was taking pictures of everything... including me.


One of the greatest things about this meeting was the tables of wool for sale. I have struggled with what color to put on the outside ring of my quilt. The girls from my chapter helped me pick out the perfect shade of a gold plaid. One of the ladies measured it against my rug and said that plaid was not enough so she helped me pick out another piece to go with it. She also taught me how to cut the wool into fourths and mark the ring into fourths to make sure the balance of the two colors is equal in the rug. Brilliant.



Several of the women brought their completed projects and they were all displayed for us to enjoy. Everyone voted on their favorite and then they awarded the top 3 rugs.

This was Haley's favorite. It took 3rd place.

I think this was my favorite. This photo does not do the colors justice.

Haley and I won one of the raffle baskets! It had a rug pattern, hooking magazine and was stuffed with wool. Haley also won the centerpiece at our table. Lucky little girl.

The pattern was a beginners pattern so I gave it to Ruby to start her 1st rug.  Ruby has been begging to let her start hooking.  I am curious to see if she really enjoys it or if she just wants to do it to go to all the hooking meetings with us. So far she looks to be a good hooker!

Finally,  after 4 hours of hooking this is where I am on my rug.  Sandy has drilled into me that I had to do my initials and date, so of course I obeyed. I can't wait to hook the gold border!

Progress report

As you can see, I have been a busy little hooker.  My hand is actually getting sore.  I need to find what I am going to hook the outside circle with.  The inside blue is so solid that I really want a plaid to hook the outside. I found two beautiful wool sport coats at Goodwill and cut them up. One is a tan herringbone that would look so cool,  but I am afraid that it will not be enough. 

Rebecca Knudsen

I have purchased 2 books on rug hooking. I have checked out all 5 of the rug hooking books at our library and I have spent hours looking at images of rug patterns and hooked rugs. I love the idea and the look of the hooking but after looking at so many, I realized that most of the patterns follow the same rules. It's hard to explain but the majority of rugs that I have seen look like they were designed by the same 3 artists. Most of the rugs are square or round, but I did see a few rebels that hooked unusual things like a stool or a 3 dimensional pineapple.

I can appreciate these rugs in their own way but none of them inspired me like the photos of Rebecca Knudsen's rugs. She is an amazing artist that has posted photos of some of her rugs on her blog. Wow. She has her own wonderful style and I love that her rugs are so personal. She uses symbols, sayings and scriptures to tell the story. I love that the shape of the rug is determined by the image. I love that she hooks text in cursive. I love her rugs! (Although it seems like an insult to refer to them as rugs, they are pieces of fine art). It completely changed the way I thought about hooking. It made it so much more personal and inspired me to find my own style and not follow someone else's pattern. I immediately started sketching and coming up with ideas of what I want to create.




These 3 images below are portraits of her children that she made as gifts for each of her kids.


look at the details!

Progress report

I have been working hard with my new Mcgown hook and it seems to be paying off. I now have all the details in the center circle hooked and just need to hook the background. I say just... but I know it will take forever.

I am starting to get worried about the "monks cloth" I purchased at Joanns. They called it Monks cloth, but none of the other hookers have seen anything like it before. They all seem to think it will work fine, but it's starting to get really tight. I will ask Sandy this Thursday if that's just what happens when you are hooking a larger rug.